Do Republicans need a Legislator with an attitude like Wexler or Boxer to begin speaking out?

[VanNay]

Why can't we Republicans have a Legislator speak out and professionally cause a voice to be heard on issues that are conservative. Who would be a good choice to do that? Someone that has respect AND an attitude. We always seem to talk after the fact and late. We need to start now being heard instead of always being nice. Name your candidate.

[truthkeeper]

I nominate Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona. He's the greatest.

[timm22]

I am not sure if I get your point here.

You said that you did not believe corporations were liberal. I was trying to counter the assumption that media corporations, as businesses, could not advocate liberal causes.

If an individual corporation could do quite well under a left-liberal economic regime, shouldn’t that be a good thing.

Good for the individual corporation?- yes. Good for the public?- perhaps not.

But I do not see a majority or a minority of corporations advocating "left -liberal" economic policy

I don't notice any media corporations advocating across-the-board liberal policy either. However, I do think in certain areas there can be bias. For example, whenever spending cuts or welfare cuts are about to go into effect, I notice stories in papers and television broadcasts about how the working poor will be devastated, single mothers don't know what to do, etc. However, whenever tax increases are about to go into affect, I don't see nearly as many stories about how it will negatively affect the poor or businesses. Perhaps that's a result of selective listening on my own part :) but I'd bet that many other Freepers would concur, and with more concrete examples.

But if corporations do own and pay for the advertising, then the editors and news people, will be more reluctant to do investigative stories that might harm the corporate sponsors, the news people and "analysts" then just become the mouthpieces of the corporations.

I certainly think that is possible. But that doesn't preclude a journalist from being liberally biased. You have to remember that the corporate world is divided and competitive. If we accept that an investigative journalist will not touch his paper's corporate sponsors, that still allows him to write scathing attacks on other, non-affiliated corporations or to advocate liberal policies which will not affect his particular corporate sponsors.

We saw that with the analysts recommending Enron stock. The whole idea with the 4th Estate is to question and investigate the powers that be...do you think the mass media is still an independent voice?

If by independent you mean uninfluenced by any outside source, than of course they are not independent. I don't know if that kind of independence is attainable or necessary.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think should be done (if anything) to restore objectivity and independence to the mass media? Usually, the solutions I get from those who argue your position are worse than the problem, but I'm hoping you will be different.

I am sorry; I do not see a lot of anti-gun, anti-hunting, or anti-home schooling reports...even though I do see anti-smoking commercials.

Sorry, the examples I gave are the ones that popped in my head most quickly. Better examples are the abortion issue, homosexuality, race relations, or church/state issues.

I now see pro-bush, pro-war, pro-corporations, and pro-Republican "news" stories...

I have also seen a lot of pro-war stories, and some pro-Republican and pro-Bush stories.

I'm not so sure about what you mean by pro-corporation stories. If you mean stories that have positive coverage about certain corportations, then the answer is "yes"- I've seen many. But I've also seen many that have very negative coverage about certain corporations. It's not my position that the media is 100% liberally biased. There are some topics where the media, as a whole, may have a more conservative bias. And some components of the media, like "Alan Keyes is Making Sense" on MSNBC, have a strong conservative bias.

Can you honestly say that media is going after bush as they did Clinton?

No, they are not going after Bush as they did clinton. But then again, Bush is handling a war and has phenomenally high approval ratings. Criticizing him too hard might hurt ratings. Clinton, however, was involved in a lot of ratings-friendly scandals. But even when covering those scadals, I heard "it's just about sex" about a million times on the nightly broadcasts. I heard very little about the serious scandals, such as the security problems we had with our nuclear secrets.

Can you honestly say that most major networks present a fair and even balance of the pro-life and pro-choice positions?

[solo gringo]

McCain speek with fork tounge